Coronavirus Geographic Dissemination at Chicago and its Potential Proximity to Public Commuter Rail

Fang, Peter

The community spread of coronavirus at great Chicago area has severely threatened the residents health, family and normal activities. CDC daily updates on infected cases on County level are not satisfying to address publics concern on virus spread. On March 20th, NBC5 published case information of 435 coronavirus infections. The data is relative comprehensive and of high value for understanding on the virus spread patterns at Chicago. Data engineering, natural language processing and Google map technology are applied to organize the data and retrieve geographic information of the virus. The analysis shows community spread in Chicago areas has a potential proximity relation with public commuter rail. Residents nearby major public commuter rails need limit outdoor activities during the outbreak and even the post-peak time.